Sunday, 13 February 2011

Along History, people have had the necessity and the curiosity of moving and changing from some places to others, and in this sense means of transport have played an important role.Nowadays, there is a great variety of means of transport and all of them have advantages and disadvantages.When we have to choose a mean of transport we usually take into account distance, speed, comfort and cost.But I would like to focus the discussion on transport in our cities and the question is: What do you think is better: to use public or private transport?Regarding private transport, I think that the car is the king. Cars provide autonomy and they are seen as being more convenient and reliable. They also provide access to more destinations than public transport. Besides, in another way, cars are seen to confer prestige and other socially desirable attributes.But, on the contrary cars are expensive to support. Owing a car means spending a lot of money in a garage, an insurance, fuel (petrol) and tax. In addition, the main problem is that cars pollute very much and this is a problem which affects us all, car owners and non-car owners.In opposite of this, I think that nowadays we can find very modern public transports as the tube, the tram, High Speed Train which are more ecological; they use less energy and make easier the traffic through the cities, among other advantages.Besides, in modern cities, bicycles are being introduced as a public transport because they are more efficient than some public transports in some conditions, as speed, flexibility and energy saving.But I wonder, is public transport really cheaper and more efficient? Is it promoted enough by governments?We should think about this, because it seems a contradiction.If you have seen the last news in Madrid, Barcelona and other big cities, the governments are asking people to use public transport because the level of pollution is very high. But, on the other hand, governments promote the sale of cars because they consider it is necessary to help car industry because of the economical crisis.So what do you think?